Help - just started, is this normal?

[lilyfire]

Have just started HE'ing my 5yo and also have a 2yo and 6mo. We have some really have awful moments during the day - usually when am trying to do something with my 5yo and 2yo is trying to destroy it and 6 mo decides to start screaming and I just feel that 5yo would be better at school (although he says he doesn't want to go until he's 10). We also have some brilliant moments - such when I watch my 5yo running round the park with 10 other children of various ages who have organised themselves into some game, or they are all collecting and comparing worms at gardening group. Is this normal? I'm tormenting myself going from high to low a few times a day and wondering if I'm doing the right thing. Have people found they settle down and stop doing this in time? Also have been reading the structured/autonomous thread. Every time we try to do anything workbooky it ends in tears. 2yo sabotages it and 5yo mostly doesn't want to do it anyway. Am amazed that people can do formal work with 3 or 4 children. Don't want to be too formal, but would be nice to be able to do more 'table-type' work when 5yo wants it, but what do people do with little ones, any tips?

[Lemontart]

I don?t home ed but just wanted to offer my sympathy. Sounds like you are trying hard to make it work and are finding it (understandably) tough.
No real tips as not in an experienced position to help. However, as a mum with two children I do know about juggling activities with diff aged kiddies. When I do hmwk with the eldest, I sit DD2 down at the table and find her something to occupy her - plenty of crayons, colouring, painting, jigsaw blocks, whatever will keep her amused. Also make a point of trying not to do the "I am spending time with DD1 so you be good and colour quietly" thing. Instead, I play down the fact that I am focussing on one child and make sure I heap praise on one and then focus on the other while the first is busy. When DD2 was younger, I tried to make the most of her morning and afternoon sleeps by leaving specific learning activities for when she was asleep. The activities that are more naturally differentiated and both can enjoy at their own level, I saved for trickier times when both demanded equal attention.
Have you any other childcare possible to call on- like a playgroup, grandparents, good friend, who can have your 2 yr old for regular time slots?

[jollydo]

I don't have 3 dcs but do have a 4 year old we are HEing and a 16 mnth old. Like your 5 yr old, the 4 yr old isn't too interested in work books except occasionally, and I'm sure he doesn't need to do them, but there are certainly other activities like quiet reading, messy painting, cooking etc. that are easier without a toddler sabotaging things! I try to do those sort of things while ds2 naps (harder I'm sure with 2 other little ones to coordinate) or do them when dp is at home (or he does them with ds1) so one of us can entertain our toddler elsewhere.
I console myself with the fact that he is learning loads anyway without too many structured activities, and is learning to share my time with his little brother. And also I imagine that not too far into the future it will be easier in this respect, as ds2 will be able to join in more without my constant help.
The other thing to consider is that in school they wouldn't be getting much 1:1 time with a teacher, and much of the time in reception anyway they would be playing. So a short period of time most days is doing pretty well.

[jollydo]

My ds says he is going to school when he is 10 too . Usually when people in shops say to him 'are you starting school soon?'

[mumtoo3]

hi i can totally relate i am home educating my 5.5yr, 2.5yr and 10 month old and have been doing this for 6 months, i too struggled as dd2 is a cling on and i just walked around with her on my hip! we only do about 2 hours a day of work with dd1, so we break it up and do it when balamory or big cook or nina are on so ds (2.5) will watch them and dd2 is either on my hip, playing with our dog, or up in bed!

it is a juggling act but your 2yr old will be getting use to seeing your older child doing work and it will become easier, my ds loves to do work when dd1 is working so i have set him up a work area and box, and now he is learning his letter sounds. the baby einstein dvds are really good for the younger 2, and i have never used a door bouncer before but dd2 loves it, which frees me up! you can read a story to all of them at the same time cuddled up on the sofa with a blanket (i have been known to do this whilst breast feeding )

hope it helps, also try and meet other home educating families as the chances are someone has been in the same boat and it really helps

[jollydo]

Hi again, I was trying to think of other activities I find feasable to do with both of them when my 16 month old is on the rampage. I thought I will start a thread of activity ideas for doing with little ones about...

[lilyfire]

Thanks everyone for the advice and Jollydo thanks for the new thread. I sort of know that it's silly to be stressing out over workbooks when he's only just turned 5 and I can see he's learning loads without them. We just had one of those days when whatever he started - even lego - was sabotaged by his brother. I was feeling he might be happier at school, especially as have had lots of people telling me how fantastic reception is.
He is clear he's fine though and enjoying all his HE groups, afterschool activities and general hanging out.

[FILLYJONKhasayarnshopASBO]

I'd ditch the workbooks too, tbh, unless you can see a clear benefit to them. Don't do them for the sake of it! Workbooks can be really really useful at higher levels but I suspect most 5 year olds have more importnat stuff to do

ok what I'd do is work out what, if anything, you really really want them to know. ditch anything non-essential.

And ask them, esp your 5 yo, what he really wants to know. Also ask him how he wants to learn, how he thinks he learns best, etc. He will probably suprise you!

And then find ways of letting them learn it, or teaching it, that can include all the children.

So in our house, at the start of the year ds really wanted to learn more about chess, telling the time, knitting, music and cooking (among other things). I have ds, (5), dd1 (3) and dd2 (7 months)

These are all things requiring quite a lot of maths, and in some cases, reading. They've also spun off into history, geography, biology, etc.

We just do the activities and everyone has a turn at weighing, counting, sounding out the words etc. Ds is of course right more often than dd1 but everyone is happy.

I keep a weekly log of activities, question, observations etc and am always quite smug looking back at how much has clearly been learnt.

the only tips i have re table type work is, if he needs 1-1, do it while your partner is home, if not, get him his own desk in the main room of the house. ds has a little desk in an alcove for his electronics and drawings and so on and he loves it, he spends quite a lot of time just sitting there pondering.

Oh and obviously, if you haven't already, buy a sling.

[AbbeyA]

Ditch the workbooks -he wouldn't be using them at school! I am not surprised that he hates them! They learn through play at school, I would suggest you do the same.You will all be much happier. There is a lot of research to say that DCs don't need formal learning until they are 7ys and you are in an ideal situation to follow that.

[onwardandupward]

Actually there's a lot of research to say that DCs don't need formal learning ever... Explanations and references in "How Children Learn at Home" (Alan Thomas and wossname Pattison is it?)

[AbbeyA]

Later on it depends on the DC entirely and how they learn,they are all different and there is never one pattern suits all! However they don't want it at 4 or 5yrs old.

[onwardandupward]

We are probably talking at cross purposes, Abbey. By "formal learning" I mean learning on an externally imposed agenda. Children can be complete auto-didacts right through to adulthood very successfully. For some, the learning will appear casual/unstructured/idiosyncratic/non-existent to an outside eye for much or all of their compulsory education years, but the outcomes are fine. For others, autodidacticism will mean using a syllabus or work books or a course of formal tuition or school classroom situation or whatever at some point, but there's a big difference in motivation and learning outcomes between such things being the choice of a child and such things being imposed on them by the adults around them. Really, read the Alan Thomas book. It's a real eye opener.

I'd have to say, I have come across 4 or 5 year olds who, for a longer or shorter period just adore doing workbooks of various kinds, or playing very explicitly educational games. But they decide what, they decide when, they decide how much. I've also come across 4 or 5 year olds who are not the slightest bit interested in anything which involves sitting still with a pen or pencil. And that's fine too!!! They'll be learning all sorts of other valuable things.

Apologies to the OP for the complete tangent!

[Litchick]

I agree OWAU. A friend of mine's kids seem to faff around most of the day but they seem to be learning just fine. Their father tests them regularly because he feels less than comfortable with it and they are all above what is expected in a school.
Also, I believe Riven on here didn't do any 'formal' teaching with her children yet they all passed entrance exams to independent school.

[AbbeyA]

We were at cross purposes then OWAU-you will be pleased to know that I can agree with you for once! For me the big advantage of HE would be that you can go with the DC and their learning style. It means that there is no point in flogging a dead horse with a workbook that a DC doesn't want to do and will never want to do; however you may have a DC who loves to work through one.
The only rider that I would put to OWAU is that it helps if an adult can be very actively involved in what the child does, merely because the DC doesn't know the full extent of the choice. For example in the 6th form I was given a list of books that I ought to have read and worked my way through them- I felt a bit cheated because I was a bookworm and yet noone had suggested these books earlier.
I have very different DCs and if I did it they would need 3 very different methods.
I shall look for the Alan Thomas book in the library. It sounds interesting.

[onwardandupward]

There's a lovely bit in the Thomas book about active involvement of the adult - being interested in what our children do, helping them to pursue their interests, suggesting new possibilities yada yada - all of that comes under the label of general good parenting, right?

"...what home educating parents do with their children is not so much a radical departure but simply an extension of what is considered good parenting anyway. However whilst [a couple of school education researchers] obviously expect schools to build on this base, in the home-educating families very little, if any further pedagogical role was taken up by parents. Remarkably, it seems that parenting, rather than teaching, is sufficient to enable children to learn" (Thomas and Harriet Pattison, 2007, p. 70-71)